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Women's Legislature: Is it Political Presence or Political Substantial?
25/08/2009 Views : 301
TEDI ERVIANTONO
Women's Legislature: Is it Political Presence or Political Substantial?
Politics tends to be attached to androcentric patriarchal culture which in turn places women in a position of structural inequality. The realm of power seems to be the domain of men and at the same time emphasizes differences in access to available resources. In political institutions, the position of women finally only experiences exclusion and becomes under-represented in every policy formulation activity.
The historical consequences of women who have long been confined to the patriarchal tradition and have to deal with global currents that make it clear the inclusion of practices of democratization, in turn place efforts to promote the inclusion of women in political institutions only by political presence. Political presence only strengthens the representation of women at the surface level because the commitment that is built is superficial, only oriented to physical presence rather than substantive. Political presence is not always able to include commitment or guarantee the representation of women's interests.
Pseudo Representation
The existence of Law Number 10 of 2008 concerning General Elections of Members of the People's Legislative Assembly, the Regional Representative Council, and the Regional People's Representative Council as well as Law Number 2 of 2008 concerning Political Parties has indeed given a mandate to political parties to fulfill a 30% quota for women in politics, especially in representative institutions.
Strengthening aspects of women's representation in the legislature is emphasized in several articles contained in it. For example, in article 8 point d of Law Number 10 Year 2008, which mentions the participation of at least 30% representation of women in the management of political parties at the central level as one of the requirements for political parties to be able to become election participants. Article 53 confirms that the list of prospective candidates also contains at least 30% representation of women and it is also emphasized in article 66 paragraph 2 that the KPU, Provincial KPU, and Regency / City KPU announce the percentage of representation of women in the list of permanent political party candidates in the daily and electronic print mass media. national. Whereas Article 2 paragraph 3 of Law Number 2 Year 2008 states that the establishment and establishment of political parties includes 30% representation of women. Furthermore, Article 20 regarding the management of political parties also mentions the drafting which takes into account the representation of women at least 30%.
The 30% quota was actually initiated in the 2004 elections, which was also the result of the demands of women activists. The results obtained were 62 elected female councilors from around 550 members of the Indonesian Parliament or about 11.3%. This figure is quite good compared to the 1999 Election, - the first election in the reformation era, which included 45 women legislators from the 500 elected members of the DPR or about 9% of the total. In the interim release of the KPU count results (May 2009), in the 2009 legislative elections, 98 women legislative members (DPR-RI) were elected from 560 elected candidates or around 17.5% of the total legislators.
The two most recent political regulations are certainly made with a commitment that women's political representation is not just a political presence but a substantial representation, but in view of the fact that it is clear that the position of women in the political configuration in our country is still far from expectations. Even though there are already regulatory instruments that mandate a 30% quota in the legislative body, this fact does not necessarily guarantee an increase in women's representation in politics. Guaranteed equality in the political field legalized through the two regulations above has not been able to provide greater access for women to fill formal political spaces, both during the phasing of the nomination to the stage of determining the elected women legislative members.
For example, for example, when announcing the recapitulation of the percentage of women representation in the list of candidates while DPRD members in some provinces, districts and cities some time ago, there were still many political parties that did not fulfill the quota of 30% women representation in the list of legislative candidates. The result was quite disappointing, aside from continuing to allow political parties to participate in the elections, the female candidates at that time were put forward recklessly by political parties without considering the aspects of party regeneration and the severity without the inclusion of candidates' knowledge capacity on gender and women's interests that must be fought for. The attention of the state to the inclusion of women in the political sphere is even more half-hearted impressed when a Constitutional Court (MK) decision emerged which changed the determination of the filling of the 2009 legislative seat from based on the candidate number of legislative candidates to based on the votes cast.